Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, is confident that humans will stay in control of AI advancements, brushing off fears of a dystopian future ruled by superintelligent machines. At an Nvidia conference, LeCun addressed the idea that AI might overtake humanity. While acknowledging AI’s potential to replace certain jobs, he emphasized that it ultimately empowers us. In a conversation with Nvidia’s Bill Dally, who compared AI to advanced ‘power tools,’ LeCun stated, ‘Our relationship with future AI systems, even superintelligence, is that we’re going to be their boss.’ He envisions AI as a smart workforce that boosts human capabilities.
Unlike some AI leaders, like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk, who caution about AI’s existential threats, LeCun considers these scenarios speculative and unlikely. In a 2024 social media post, he described fears of AI dominance as a ‘sci-fi trope/cliché’ and reassured that superintelligence won’t emerge overnight.
During the Nvidia conference, LeCun acknowledged the risks of AI misuse but argued that enhancing AI’s reasoning and self-verification abilities could help mitigate these threats. He concluded with confidence, ‘The fix for this is better AI… But the catastrophe scenario, frankly, I don’t believe in that.’
